


the remains of your kiss linger on my lips

by MatildaSwan



Category: Holby City
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Denial of Feelings, F/F, Feelings, Masturbation, Pining, pre-ship/pining Raf/Fletch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 15:22:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9908540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MatildaSwan/pseuds/MatildaSwan
Summary: It seems like a good idea, to keep it confined to theatre and continue being friends, just like they were before they kissed. Except, the Serena she was before Bernie kissed her is the same Serena who sat on the floor of that theatre and opened up her mouth and spilled out her heart to plug the cracks she could see forming in her best friend’s chest. It makes being Bernie's friend a bit difficult, when all Serena can think about is kissing Bernie, when all she wants is to kiss Bernie again.Without the threat of secondment just how much longer could Serena have survived being Bernie's friend?





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, I was going to branch out write dialogue instead of emotionally intense introspectives but then I blinked and this happened. Whoops. Me, writing an emotional intense introspective, what a surprise. 
> 
> Also many thanks to @ktlsyrtis for being a beta-ing champ :)

Leave it confined to the theatre, Bernie had said, claiming it would be wise. Serena knows Bernie is probably right, that it is wise to preserve their friendship rather than gamble on something else. It is wise not to give it a go and try and probably fail and have everything crumble to dust: to have everything they have worked towards these past months ignite and burn to ashes around their ears when it inevitably goes wrong.

So nipping whatever _they_ might be in the bud might not have been what Serena wanted to hear but it’s what she hears nonetheless and she is smart enough to know that Bernie is probably right. Smart enough to know she would rather have some of Bernie forever than all of Bernie now only to lose herlater and then have nothing of her at all.

She couldn’t lose Bernie, wouldn’t lose her or her friendship: their friendship was everything to Serena. So she said nothing about what she wanted and drunk her wine and continued being Bernie’s friend.

 

*

 

It is easy enough, to sink into their old rhythm. To sink back into their easy working relationship where works gets in the way of them. Of course it is, why wouldn’t it be, it is easy, of course.

Serena is thankful for the busyness. It makes it easy, not thinking about Bernie, when the ward is bustling and Bernie is on the other side of it. It makes it easy not thinking about Bernie when all they can think about is their patients.

It is easy not to think about Bernie as the red phone rings and another trauma wheels in through the doors. It is easy not to think about Bernie when they are standing in an operating theatre on either side of a dying women performing emergency life saving surgery.

“God, there’s another one, it’s…I don’t know if I can—” Serena breaks off as she tries to stem an abdominal bleed. They had already dealt with the suspected arterial bleed just above a jigsaw of shattered ulna: they might yet lose the arm. The intestines are in the way and she cannot see.

“We can do this, Serena.” Bernie’s gloved hand appears next to hers. “I’ve got you.” It is easy not to think about Bernie as anything other than a friend. “We can do this.”

They do: find the bleed and stem it, repair the spleen and remove a kidney. Stabilise her and send her up to intensive care. Bernie removes her gloves with a snap and they scrub out together.

Of course it is easy not to think about Bernie as anything other than a friend: after all, she only entertained the thought of Bernie being anything else for a few days. Not even a week, really, of thinking about kissing Bernie; kissing Bernie again.

Barely even a week of thinking about thelook in Bernie’s eyes before she careen forward and gave Serena the shock of her life. Barely even a week of thinking about those moments of panic and confusion and the elation Serena felt when Bernie pulled away, before she was overcome with the desperate all consuming need to be kissing Bernie again. Barely even a week of thinking about lips so sweet and kisses all at once gentle and fierce and the frantic clawing of her own hands as she tried to touch as much of Bernie as she could as they kissed on the floor of the operating theatre.

She only thought about it for a few days before she had to stop thinking about it at all so it is easy enough to go back to how they used to be a week ago.Forget it happened and pretended that it never had. It never happened and they are just friends.

 

*

 

Their friendship, the depth, at the very least, was unexpected: Serena had not expected this. Of course she had hoped, when they had first met, that they might be friends; she always had room in her life for friends. She had friends in her life already.

Her colleagues were her friends, of a sort, the ones she was closest to. Morven was more like a daughter and Fletch felt a bit like that mate you never thought to call but were always ecstatic to see when you did. Hanssen was a enigma, floating in and out, but he was there whenever she needed him and so she like him all the same. But Ric and Raf, those two, they were friends, of course: with the things they’ve shared since they had met it would be impossible not to slip past colleagues and acquaintances into proper friendship.

But they were blokes, which was fine, but Serena wanted women: to be friends with. Serena had always yearned for more girlfriends the she had and wanted one at the hospital for as long as she could remember; since her early days at Holby when she tried to forge a friendship with Jac over coffee in Pulses and getting nothing short of brusque indifference. She had desperately wanted a girlfriend at the hospital and then she got one and now she needs to reassess what that word means to her.

 

*

 

Serena is sure she can go back to back to normal now that the nerves of possibility are gone. Sure she can go back to being herself, to the Serena she was before, before Bernie had kissed her. After all, that Serena had managed well enough without Bernie kissing her before so the Serena she is now is sure she can do it just as well.

Proves it to herself, when Fletch is sick: manages without Bernie while they both worry about Fletch but do it separately. It helps that Bernie is distracted by the problem of Fletch’s diagnosis. It helps that Bernie is working on a problem, away from Serena, until she finds the answer. And even after, when Fletch is out of the wood and on the mend and no longer occupying all of Bernie’s attention, they keep their eyes on the ward. They keep busy with their patients and it helps to be busy.

It helps that Bernie is so busy looking for dozens of answers she cannot see anything else. Cannot see Serena looking at her as she thinks about kissing her again. Because every time Serena looks at Bernie she thinks of kissing her. Soft and gentle; fierce and frantic.

It infuriates Serena to no end, to be thinking of kissing Bernie, because she does not want to be thinking of Bernie at all. But the Serena she was before they kissed is the same Serena who sat on the floor of that theatre and opened up her mouth and spilled out her heart to plug the cracks she could see forming in her best friend’s chest. Serena could never stop thinking about Bernie because the Serena she was before Bernie pressed their lips together felt exactly like she does now.

Felt the same warmth in her chest that flares every time they walk side by side down the corridor. Felt the same need to be close to Bernie and the same hum in pit of her stomach whenever they are: close and near and now never near enough. The same flutter in her heart at the back of Bernie’s dishevelled head and the tingle of her skin whenever she touches Bernie and the aching in her cheeks from smiling too much.

Only now she understands what those feelings are and the only difference between the Serena she is now and the Serena she was a second before they kissed is that both of them are decidedly not kissing Bernie but now she is upset about it. 

So she avoids Bernie, but not really, because why would she ever avoid her best friend. It’s just that they are rarely in the same room anymore, what with their staggered shifts on different ward changes. It makes not thinking about Bernie a little bit easier, when she is on nights and not around Serena or the ward during the day. She is glad Bernie is on nights, Serena thinks, it serves her right. Serves her right for making Serena think about her all night long.

 

*

 

Serena realises she has no idea what most of the words in her life mean. Big words, important words: friend and love and family.

She thought she knew what family meant, once upon a time: based her understanding off her parents. She tried it with Edward and Elinor and for a time she got it right. For all it was utter shambles by the end, not to mention their brief repeat, they had been a family of three. She still is a family of three, with Elinor, only now that family includes Jason too. Serena used to know what family meant: people you inherited, that were always there, and people you produced, who you were always there for, to love them even when your didn’t much like them.

Now she knows that choosing to love someone unconditionally, because you want to not because you think you should, is as strong a bond as carrying a foetusin your body for the better part of a year until it is time to heave and cry and scream as it makes its way out of your body and into the world. Knows that family is whoever you choose to share your life with and love within remorse.

Serena knows what love is and has done her whole life. There has never been any question, about understanding that feeling she has for her family and for medicine and for herself. That type of love isn’t a problem. It is all the other kinds she has difficulty with: the love for partners and best friends and colleagues. She has difficulty keeping them all seperate now, separating friendship from companionship, closeness and familiarity from intimacy and desire. 

The problem is the growing knowledge that maybe those things don’t need to be seperate at all. That maybe someone can be all those things at once. Be all those things for her. For her to want someone to be all those things. Want to be all those things for someone else.

The problem is struggling to separate friend from lover because that is what she agreed to. Only she looks at Bernie and wonders why she would want to keep them seperate at all. Wonders why she would want to keep herself and Bernie seperate since they kissed. Since Bernie kissed her and cracked her heart wide and split open her mind.

 

 

*

 

The time apart does her good, separated on the ward, being apart from Bernie. Now the confusion and the giddiness and uncertainty have subsided and her mind is clear. She knows where they stand and everything is okay: they are friends. They may joke about being strangers but they are friends. She misses her friend.

The lift opens; cue Ric. There is Ric, walking out of the lift, to work on their ward. Serena doesn’t mind, not really, she is grateful to have him on the ward: grateful for the distraction and the entertainment. It’s good to have a friend on the ward. Two, in fact, Serena has two friends on the ward and it finally feels okay.

She doesn’t miss her friend anymore because her friend is right there, teasing Ric. She delights in teasing Ric, delights in Bernie teasing Ric, delights in Bernie teasing Ric with her. Delights in Bernie laughing and smiling and standing near: she missed Bernie being near. She is happy to have Bernie be near again.

“It’s nice to see romance blossoming,” Serena says, part hope and part rebuke: a jab at Bernie for opening her eyes only to ask her to close them again. She says it is nice and she means it, too, though her words are laced with envy: she wants it to blossom between them. 

She wants it to blossom between them and for a second she wonders if Bernie wants it as well. For a second she thinks that maybe Bernie might want it too but she says nothing so she can’t want it, not enough, if she even wants it at all. She does wants drinks, thought, just not tonight: sometimes she wonders what Bernie wants.

She wonders what Bernie wanted, before, when she kissed her. What Bernie wanted from her, when Serena had opened her eyes, on the theatre floor, to look at Bernie: small and terrified and wanting. She felt Bernie shaking with want but the hand on her collarbone stayed so still and calm and perfect near her heart.

Serena had opened her eyes to look and leant forward and dived deep into Bernie; her eyes squeezed closed so tight nothing in the world existed except for the feel of Bernie’s lips on hers and the fingers at the nap of her neck and the solidness of Bernie’s body under Serena’s searching hands as she tried to find purchase on anything in the world to steady herself from falling.

She never quite found her grasp, Serena knows now. Her own overwrought attempts to touch all of Bernie at once meant she never touched enough of Bernie and now she cannot touch Bernie at all. She wants to touch Bernie. Her eyes might have been closed when she kissed Bernie back but they have been wide open since.

So is her mouth, apparently, barely pried open with wine and Ric’s company. She stalls, at first, beats around the bush and laughs when he gets it so very wrong.

“Who’s the lucking man?” So very, very wrong.

“It isn’t a man…It’s, it’s Bernie.”

Her heart is just so full, now, with feelings she can’t quite wrangle down and lock away. They have a habit of seeping out, she knows, onto her face mostly: that is how he caught her in the fist place, after all.

But now they spill out, spill out of her mouth in a rush so fast Serena isn’t sure she knows what she is trying saying. She doesn’t even know what _it_ really is, except that it’s Bernie, but that is enough to pour out into Ric’s surprised and supportive lap. 

“Well…that is, not what I was expecting.” Well, neither had she, but here she is. “I think it’s brilliant!” So had she, for a moment, before Bernie burst that bubble. But here she is anyway, pouring out feelings and toasting to love, with her heart fluttering and her eyes wide open.

 

*

 

She keeps her eyes open and looks at herself. Looks at all of herself, now that she knows she had only ever seen a part; a part of who she was and could be. Known part of herself, who she wanted, what she wanted in life. She thought she already knew, but now, now Serena knows she only ever knew part and could never have known all because she never really thought about it: about herself.

She thinks about it now, herself, herself and Bernie: she thinks about Bernie constantly. And when she is sick of thinking about Bernie she thinks about other, too, now she is thinking about herself. About Jac and Fleur and Collette. About the nurse manager from her last hospital, her Professor in second year that always wore pencil skirts under her lab coat, her roommate in first year who always smelt divine. She even thinks about Sian for a moment but dismisses that thought as soon as it materialises in her mind.

Doesn’t dismiss the others, though: the others, well, maybe. Maybe the professor Serena always worked so hard to impress with insightful questions and brilliant assignments, just to see her proud little smile directed right at Serena. Maybe Colette with her kind offers and gentle understanding. Maybe Fleur with her forwardness and open flirting.

Definitely Fleur, Serena realises, with the flirting she had sent right back: there had been something there, just underneath her line of sight and out of reach. But she hadn’t known, not then. Had she? She hadn’t known then. Had she known then, that she wanted this now? Maybe she had always wanted this.

Only she can’t, want this, want Bernie, because Bernie’s doesn’t want her. Bernie doesn’t want her and they are just friends and Serena doesn’t want Bernie to be anything else.

 

*

 

They work the same shift for the first time in too long and finish at the same time too. Serena is knackered but cannot say no to Bernie, when she suggests they get some food when they clock off. She cannot say no to Bernie.

Eats too much because she is famished and drinks too much because it is delicious. Bernie laughs at her jokes, sitting across the table: glass of wine in hand deep plum and high cheekbones soft pink in the candle light.

She looks beautiful and Serena wants to tell her. Does not tell her. Pours herself another glass of wine and prays she does not tell her. Because dinner with Bernie is warm and comfortable and familiar: like it always is with Bernie.

She never expected this, any of this, but as she sits in the passenger seat as Bernie drives to her house she wonder why she ever wanted anything else. She wishes Bernie goodnight before going to bed alone and knows she wants something else.

She wants something else, and thinks Bernie might want too. Thinks that Bernie might feel the same and that is the problem. She thinks that Bernie might feel for her and part of her wants to reach out and hold on to that feeling and never let go: never let go of Bernie. She knows she wants to hold Bernie. 

Holds her hand, the next morning. Holds out her hand, to introduce herself, in jest.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Serena Campbell, have we met?”

They have, of course, but they shake hands anyway. Smile at one another as they shake hands: forget to let go and they hold hands until they remember and break apart. Serena looks away and at the ground because she cannot look at Bernie.

They watch a women die: not in an accident or on the operating table. Watch a women just fade away. Hopefully not forever.

“What can I do to help?” Bernie asks. Serena knows Bernie was just trying to make Serena feel better. That she wants to make Serena feel better.

“Nothing, unless you can think of a way to formally verify death and release the body in under four minutes…” Serena trails off and they lapse into silence.

Bernie tilts her head and nibbles her lip and looks at the corner of the room with a furrowed brow.

“It that all?” She says absently and Serena laughs: yes, Bernie, because doing the impossible is that all.

Only it isn’t, impossible, because Bernie thinks of a way. Thinks of a way to do the impossible, because Serena asked her to. Bernie dashes away to tell Pete they have a plan and leaves Serena sat at her desk. She is struck with a thought, as Bernie runs across the ward, that maybe Bernie would do anything for Serena if she asked.

If she only asked. Bernie is happy to give some of herself to Serena without Serena even asking. She is happy to have some of Bernie forever but part of her cannot help but want all of Bernie forever. It whispers at her, that part of her stupid idiotic brain that hopes without reason, about what if, what _if_ , she could have all of Bernie forever, her torturous lovesick brain keeps thinking. What if Bernie wants it too because Bernie found a way to do the impossible and she did it because all she wanted to do was make Serena feel better.

 

*****

 

Serena wants a lot of things now. Wants women. Wants Bernie. Bernie has left her wanting: late night nearing midnight and Serena cannot stop thinking of Bernie on the floor of the theatre and how she left Serena wanting.

Serena shivers as she runs her nails down over her stomach and toward the crux of her thighs. Her hand slips under the waist band of her pyjamas. Her fingers trail through her own wetness and she sighs as she imagines what it would feel like with Bernie’s fingers. What it would feel like to trail her fingers over Bernie, to slide her fingers through Bernie’s hot swollen folds, and find her as wet as Serena is now.

She wonders what it would feel like to sink her fingers deep in Bernie and feel her clench around Serena’s knuckles. She wonders what it would feel like, to feel Bernie wet and begging on her fingers. Wants to know what it would feel like, to feel Bernie like this; sometimes it feels like she is drowning with all of this.

Feels like she is pouring from her chest, feelings unconfined by her gaping ribcage, everything spilling out of her and falling to her feet and pooling on the floor. She wishes she was on the floor again, kissing Bernie, remembers what it felt like to kiss Bernie.

Serena sobs as she comes, hard and long and rumbling, hips jerking as the waves wash through her. A name tries to claw its way up her throat: she does not let it out. She falls asleep with tears sticky on her cheek and wet on her fingers and does not dream of Bernie.

 

*

 

She turns her attention to Raf, struggling with the kids and looking a little lost on the ward. She offers to help with the Fletchings, take some of the load off his back if she can, then offers him some silver lining. She suggests a research secondment somewhere sunny, thinking that getting away from it all might be just what he needs. She hadn’t realised leaving Fletch and the kids behind was the furthest thing from Raf’s mind and the very last thing he wants. 

Then they find that Fletch has managed himself a new injury. As happy as they are to see him on AAU again all of them had hoped the next time would be his return to work. Needless to say, Raf is upset: worried and concerned and frightened. Serena and Raf settle Fletch into a room just freed up and Raf snips at Fletch and Fletch snips back. Serena cannot help giggling when she realised the two men bicker like they’ve been married half their lives.

Bernie pokes her head in to check on Fletch and Serena wonders what their fights would be like: when they’re older and completely grey. The thought starts out as them on the ward but it quickly becomes them in her house.

She is sure she would shout and Bernie would seethe. They would retreat to different ends of their house and stay seperate until they both crawl back to one another with apologies falling from their mouths. Apologies would fall from their mouths as they fall into bed and they would wake up as if they never fought.

She leaves the room and her thoughts of Bernie behind her and tries to focus on the ward. She cannot help it, though, thinking of Bernie: waking up next to her with her gold hair gone white and lines carved deeper in the corners of her mouth. She shakes her head and chastises herself: she has to stop thinking about Bernie.

So she thinks about Raf instead, as he laments how everything is just so hard (without Fletch). How things are so different, without Fletch at home, and how he doesn’t think he can cope (without Fletch).

She can hear him include Fletch in his sentences, even if he doesn’t say as much, and thinks about how worried and upset he is and how much he loves those children like they were his own. She thinks about Raf and Fletch; thinks about the way Raf looks at Fletch.

“Go and help your friend,” she says. _Friend._ She hopes it goes better for him than it has for her, hopes they figure it all out. 

Because even thought Fletch is on AAU again it is as a patient and the energy of the whole ward is off and in disorder. Raised voices filter into the ward from Fletcher’s room. Serena looks over from the nurses’s station to see her staff all bickering: Fletch is disgruntled and snarky and Raf contrite and a bit perturbed and that has Morven practically frothing at the mouth.

Serena stands up to sort them out and suddenly there is Bernie, walking into the Fletch’s room. She doesn’t say a word but they fall silent: her presence is enough to calm them all. Morven apologises profusely and Fletch mumbles his sorries and Raf scuffs his feet and walks over to the bed.

Morven walks out of the room and Bernie follows: throwing a glance over her shoulder before bumping the door shut. Serena sees Raf reaching out towards the bed before the door shuts completely. She wonders if he is brave enough to take Fletch’s hand: she wishes she were brave enough to take Bernie’s.

 

*

 

Keeps wishing she were brave enough as the days roll and nothing changes.

Mid-shift they pass each other in the lift: Serena getting out to see Fletch, now transferred back upstairs, and Bernie coming back down. Serena cannot help but look back over her shoulder before the door pings shut. Sees Bernie wringing her hands together and wishes they were clasped around hers.

Another day they bump into each other at Pulses before their shift starts and Bernie buys both their coffees. Treats them both to a mixed berry turnover with a smile so bright it leaves Serena blinking blind. They walk onto the ward and chat between sips so easily and comfortable she never wants to stop.

She has to, though, because they have a ward to run. Serena runs herself ragged on patient care until she clocks out and races home and lets her racing mind distract her from sleep as she doesn’t stop thinking of Bernie.

Their first major trauma in almost two days rolls in, red phone barely back on the hook. Bernie leads, as always, and Serena follows. Following Bernie’s lead it how she got into this mess in the first place, she thinks, as they delve elbow into an abdominal trauma complicated by a cracked pelvis. They get the internal injuries under control and Bernie finishes suturing and Serena removes the clamp.

Their gloved hands brush for a moment and white hot flares through Serena’s fingers and up her arm. No amount of water can put out the burning and she can still feel the tingling an hour after they scrub out.

They clock off night shift at the same time and walk out to the carpark together. They reach Serena’s car too soon and she considers walking Bernie to hers, just to be near her a little longer. She know that is ridiculous so she stops herself and gets in the car instead.

“Guess I’ll be seeing you later today then.” Trying to get away but desperate to stay.

“Looking forward to it,” Bernie says with a laugh. “Sleep well, Serena.”

Bernie walks away and to her car and Serena grips the steering wheel so hard her knuckles turn white as she watches the back of Bernie in the dark carpark. The sun starts to rise. She waits until Bernie leaves the carpark before she turns on her engine. Rushes home to bed and day dreams of Bernie.

 

*

 

The ward is quiet that night, thankfully, with all the beds full of sleeping patients. Serena envies them, sound and asleep while she sits at her desk. Sits at her desk across from Bernie in their tiny small cosy office with a piles of paperwork next to their elbows.

Bernie’s stack is bigger. Quite a lot bigger. Probably has something to do with the thousand yard stare Bernie is giving the corner of the room as she sits back in her chair and nibbles on a pen.

Serena starts at her for a few moments until Bernie catches Serena staring at her. Their eyes meet and she smirks and Bernie grins: they keep looking, beats too long, and look away.

“Getting a lot done, are we?” Serena asks, as light as she can manage. 

“Oh, you know me, always keen on paperwork,” Bernie says ruefully, and turns her attention back to the file on her desk. “Best get back to it.”

She looks down at her files as Serena looks at her through lowered lashes. Bernie starts chewing on the pen again, as she reads, then lowers it to the page to tick some boxes and makes some notes. She leans forward on her elbow, hand away from the paper now and up near her face, and rests the pen against her lips. Pouts against the pen as she twirls it between long relaxed fingers.

Serena feels a wave of lust course through her: liquid heat and all consuming. She feels herself face flush as Bernie plays with a pen. She wants Bernie to pay her the same attention she is giving that pen. She realises Bernie would rather give attention to a pen that Serena and Serena feels pathetic.

She drags her eyes away and buries her attention back into her paperwork and wonders when her life became this. Wonders how much longer she can go on surviving like this, being so filled with want for Bernie she is envious of a god damn _pen_.

 

*

  

Not much longer, it turn out, only a few more days, until it all becomes so much more than too much and Serena simply cannot keep going on like this. 

They are in their office, when Serena finally cracks. Their office: tiny space in a huge hospital filled to the brim with patients and family members and doctors and nurses and cleaners. A tiny space that is just for them, even when other people use it, because they each have their own desk and chair and piles of paperwork. They both have clippings on the pushpin board and their own photographs on display because is it their office. It used to be Serena’s and now it is theirs.

Their office is where she breaks: looking at Bernie sitting across from her at her desk working through yet another pile of paperwork. The night shift is quiet for the moment and the still of the ward buffets at the closed door. 

Bernie is reading and glowing in the lamplight: hair gleaming and face smooth and carved lines in marble. Bernie looks beautiful. Bernie is beautiful. Bernie is so beautiful Serena cannot look at her; cannot look away. Serena cannot hold it in any longer, just how beautiful Bernie is to her, that she want to kiss her much it hurts. 

She cannot hold it in anymore. She cannot keep it confined to theatre, she can barely keep it confined at all. She does not want to keep it confined at all, not any more. But she does keeps it contained within the walls of their office. 

“Bernie, I…” she starts and stops. Bernie looks up at her and her messy hair flops on her face. Serena’s heart flips. She opens her mouth to speak and nothing comes out. Bernie looks at her with curious care-filled eyes as Serena struggles to work out what she wants to say. She has as an entire conversation in her head, about what she wants, only to start speaking at the end. “I don’t want to.”

“Oh, okay,” says Bernie, thinking that Serena has decided against breakfast when their shift is over. She had asked when they sat down at their desks a while ago. “Another time then,” Bernie says and goes back to her paperwork. 

“No, this time, I mean… I want, don’t want…” Serena gets out of her seat and paces, buries her head in her hands and has no idea what to do with herself. She hears Bernie stand and walk over to her, feels Bernie’s hand on her back to comfort: it blazes and burns on her shoulder blades and she lets out a sob.

“Serena, what’s wrong?” Bernie voice is so thick with concern and Serena wheels around and away from Bernie’s hand. Stands a foot away and near the wall and cannot bear it anymore: it is all too much and she cannot bear all this wanting.

“Jesus, Bernie,” she starts and knows she cannot stop. “You’re all I think about. Every day. I can’t stop it, I think about you all the time. I think about your face and your smile and your stupid messy hair and how much I want to touch it—touch you,” she breathes deep. “God, Bernie, I think about touching you, everyday.” Serena takes a step forward and reaches out to cup Bernie’s cheek. “I think about touching you and kissing you and wanting you. Bernie, I—” Serena’s voice breaks as she runs her thumb over Bernie’s cheekbone. “I want you, Bernie.”

Bernie stands there, rigid and warm, under Serena’s palm. She does not move, respond, breathe. Bernie does nothing and Serena needs her to do something. She drops her hand by her side and rushes on. 

“I know what you said, but I can’t, I’m sorry.” She is sorry, really, because Bernie is just _staring_ at her and it hurts. “I just can’t anymore, it’s too much, all this _wanting._ ” It hurts, to speak now, so much in her heart is trying to work its way out her throat and it hurts. Bernie hasn’t said anything and it hurts. She doesn’t want this, she doesn’t want Serena, and it hurts.

“Tell me, that you don’t want me.” Serena blinks, tears in her eyes. “Maybe it’ll stop if you say it. Tell me you don’t want me, please?” She begs, sight blurry and the world fuzzy; she misses the look at Bernie’s face. The most curious look of elation and adoration and heartbreak.

“No,” Bernie whispers, harsh and ragged. She smoulders under her skin; burns with want for Serena. Blazed under the skin so hot anyone could see it, if they looked, would see it all through Bernie’s body.

But Serena isn’t looking at Bernie: doesn’t see, only hears. Hears a negative. Her heart sinks and her eyes squeeze shut and a tear spills down her cheek. She goes to wipe it away and finds Bernie’s finger is there first. 

Opens her eyes and looks at Bernie. Realises she is so close and right _there_ and Serena looks up; sees Bernie looking down at her. She finally looks at Bernie and dares to hope. 

“No, Serena, I could never tell you I don’t want you.” Bernie cups Serena’s face in her hands and draws her close. “I want you more than anything,” Bernie whispers against Serena’s lips. 

They pause for a moment, lips just out of reach, until Serena closes the last few millimetres: launches herself at Bernie, frantic and desperate. Bernie’s responses in kind her mouth ravishing with steady hands: one on Serena’s neck and the other combing through hair just behind the ear. Serena moans, her head in dizzy but her body so very present.

Bernie presses harder against her and Serena tightens her grip on Bernie’s waist: her head it dizzy and her knees go weak and she stumbles them towards the desk, their embrace never breaking. Serena falls to sit on the desk with Bernie between her legs: warm and solid and against her body and hand on her face so gentle.

She slips a hand down over Bernie’s hips and up underneath her scrubs and rests on her toned quivering stomach. Bernie breaks away with a gasp, like the hand on her skin burns. Looks at Serena with dark eyes and parted lips and Serena tightens the grip of her thighs and links her ankles behind Bernie’s knees. Curls her legs around Bernie to pull her closer and stop her ever leaving.

She retrieves her hands and raises her arms to bury her fingers in the ridiculous mop of curls that has haunted her daydreams for weeks and dives face first into Bernie: over and again. Lips soft and fierce and delicious. 

They break apart, eventually, with no clue how long they’ve been kissing in their office. Not that either of them care, both beaming bright as they rest their foreheads together and pant to get their breath back.

Serena feels like her heart is so full it’s breaking: wide open and spilling forward and reaching out. She feels Bernie reaching out to her, reaching out for her. Whispers in her ear that she wants Serena and Serena finally stops thinking. Stops thinking about Bernie because she is right there with her and she has what she wants. Bernie is right there with her and Serena finally has everything she wants.


End file.
